Yume Mamoru, Senshi Yo
by Hitokiri Gentatsu
Summary: What Kenshin might have been thinking during and after Saito tells him to become the Hitokiri again in episode 37 of the anime series.


Yume Mamoru, Senshi Yo

Yume Mamoru, Senshi Yo By Hitokiri Gentatsu 

Author's Note and summary: What Kenshin might have been thinking during and after Saito tells him to become the Hitokiri again in episode 37 of the anime series. The quote by Kenshin to Saito just prior to their duel is taken from the manga rather than the anime because I liked the way it sounded. It was translated by Lecron or Maria of Rurouni Kenshin-Tales of the Swirly-Eyed Samurai. Sadly, I do not own Rurouni Kenshin; he was created by the pen of Nobuhiro Watsuki. Enjoy!

Yume mamoru, senshi yo 

_Yume ni nigekomu kokoro_

_Tsuremodoshite don't look back_

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_Oh, warrior that protects dreams!_

_The heart that ran away into darkness…_

_Bring it back with you; don't look back!_

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_~Ice Blue Eyes~_

_~Misao character song~_

_~Romanization/Translation: Takayama Miyuki~_

_~J-Lyrics and Translation Archive~_

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You cannot possible understand the implications of what you are asking me to do. You'll never understand. You cannot for your soul is not divided into two separate beings. I am only someone you knew as the Hitokiri Battousai. You do not know me as Himura Kenshin at all. How can you? You ask me to return to being a Hitokiri but, as always, you fail to understand who you are asking me to become. If I allow the Hitokiri within to have control for even a moment, if I release the killer I was ten years ago, then I will once again lose the person I have become and this time maybe forever. The man I have become will be overshadowed by the one I once was. The Hitokiri Battousai is so close to the surface now; perilously close having been drawn out at last by our last encounter. I can sense his thoughts, hear his cold voice in my own, echoing down through the years. With each step I take toward Kyoto his will grows stronger, with each battle I face the sleeping Hitokiri within me wakes more. For ten years I have tried to keep him hidden deep within myself, always under my control. I never let him show himself in word, thought or deed but now I feel him within, hovering always just below the surface of my thoughts…waiting. I fear what will happen when I return to Kyoto…when I pass through the gates of the city I have strove to forget. The city that was the birthplace of this other, darker half of myself.

Kyoto was his home but it was never truly mine. Hitokiri Battousai was created in the flames of the Bakmatsu that swept over Kyoto like a wave of darkness. He rode that darkness and war and killing in order to protect the innocent were all that he knew, all that he could believe in. The dark alleyways were his killing ground, the night his only true friend. He was cold, calculating and ruthless, a silent, shadowy killer bringing fear and then death to his enemies who saw him for a brief instant before they fell. He was a mere shadow among countless other shadows who stalked the night. His deadly work was noticed and whispered of but never truly acknowledged for it could never be. He had few friends, if any, because no one would dare to get that close to a killer who only lived to kill and who was destined to die anyway. Even the Ishinishi, his own side, feared him, feared his abilities and what he was becoming. A man who was nothing more than a tool for slaughter. A boy who had lost himself and who had traded his pure soul for the chance to fight for an idealistic dream he was never able to understand properly.

He was my baser instincts carefully hidden behind the mask of youthful innocence, in the body of a fourteen year old with the unstained soul of a child who looked much younger and who was almost feminine in appearance. Someone who couldn't possibly be a threat to anyone for all that he carried two swords at his waist. That mere 'child' was the most feared and deadly assassin who brought 'divine justice' down on those who were deemed evil by others with swift and deadly strokes of his sword. Even long after I traded the shadowy existence of a Hitokiri for the life of a bodyguard my enemies still feared me and even now the name of Hitokiri Battousai still holds that power. I was once that man who was the most feared in all of Japan. It is not a title I wish to hold onto any longer, nor is it a name I wish to keep.

But all the while the Hitokiri fought on the blood soaked battlefields in and around Kyoto, all the while he killed in the name of justice, another persona lurked within him watching everything with a troubled heart, wondering what he had become, fearing his Shishou was right, that he was just a pawn, a tool and knowing he was no better than a common murderer who slew for no other reason than to see blood flow. Himura Kenshin also resided in that same fourteen year old body and every day he lost a little more of himself to the Hitokiri he was becoming. Every day he cried and agonized over the lives lost, the lives he had taken. But that persona only existed after the killing was done. The heart of the Hitokiri Battousai had no room in heat of battle for the heart of Himura Kenshin. The soul of the Hitokiri remained untouched by what he did but the blood I spilled forever stained my soul. Surely those who died on the sword of Battousai were enemies to the new era that we both wanted to create but just as surely they also had just been trying to live their lives. They had families that carried for them, wives who loved them, and children who waited for them to return safely from war's battlefields. Even as the sword of Hitokiri Battousai destroyed the happiness of many people, taking hundreds of lives away, the soul of Himura Kenshin still knew the words of his Shishou were true. Men might be evil but they are still human beings before anything else.

That is why I swore an oath, never to kill again after the war was over, never to take the life of another and why that oath is worth more than my own life. I had learned what happiness was and how easily it could be lost through carelessness. I had found happiness in my wife, Tomoe, and in the small farm where we had lived in peace for five months. I had been happy there; truly happy for the first time in years but my sword destroyed that happiness too even as it had destroyed the happiness of others. I took the life of someone who, at the time, meant more to me then life itself. One who I would have done anything for and who I would have protected for as long as she lived. She died protecting me…so that I could live to fulfill the dream I had spoken of: a life of peace, one where I would use my sword only to protect, never to kill. I finally understood how the families of those I slew felt and I also understood that those who fought for the Shoganate were also fighting to maintain their own happiness. Our goals were, at the heart, the same even if the way we chose to achieve them was different.

That is why my vow is so important to me and why it must not ever be broken. If I broke it I would return to the life of the Hitokiri again. It would take only one death by my hand and the spirit of Himura Kenshin would die. I cannot and must not break that vow. I will not let this broken sakabatou that hangs at my side become a symbol of a vow broken, not a vow that was made to one who gave her life that an assassin might find redemption. When I find Arai Shakku I will ask him forge a new, stronger sakabatou with which to fight Shishio. I intend to fight him with my own strength and in my own way. I intend to keep my vow no matter what happens, even if I die. You cannot ask me to break my promise to Tomoe for nothing you say or do will ever force me to do so.

I will find another way. I will fight this battle on my own terms. You believe that the strength of the Rurouni I have become is not enough; that I must become the Hitokiri I was again. But I stand by what I said at the Kamiya Dojo the night of our last duel.

"If I only have the strength of the vagabond who protects others reflected in my eyes it's enough. I don't need the strength of the murderous Hitokiri anymore."

I do not need his strength. I will find new strength to add to my own. I will call on my Shishou and ask him to grant me the succession technique of the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu. I will master it using only the strength of the Rurouni I have become just as I mastered the other techniques as Himura Kenshin long before the Hitokiri Battousai lived in the flames of revolution. Then I will be strong enough to defeat Shishio without reverting to my former self again. The sword that kills will remain forever sealed away from the world and the soul of Himura Kenshin might finally begin to reconcile his two separate halves.

I cannot change my past, cannot give back all the lives I destroyed but I can make sure that history does not repeat itself in Kyoto now. I can make sure the peace so many died for and that I have come to cherish will remain unscathed by war. I will do what I can to protect the peace and happiness of those who have never known war's horrors. I only hope that this will not be at the cost of my life or sanity. I only hope that I will not to be forced to become the Hitokiri who only cares for chaos and death and that I remain as I am now~ a Rurouni who desires peace and does not kill.


End file.
